Last weekend was the last birthday of my twenties… To celebrate this occasion, we had a sort of made up/influenced by the internet cocktail to go with the lobster and cake at my birthday party.
THE CITRUS QUO
To make:
Drink and try to stay upright!
The hands modelling the Cornish Pasties belong to my mother. The crumbs from the Cornish Pasties are still residing in my mother’s car.
Quite frankly, I’ve eaten and I’ve made a lot of Cornish Pasties in my life. And these from Mary’s Pasties at Tresillian Garden Centre are the best EVER. Every year, we make a detour on the way home to get a pasty each for the journey and it’s always these ones.
Mary is a local lady who supplies, handmade, all the pasties herself to local garages and sells them from the tearoom in Tresillian Garden Centre. They’re so tasty, thick crunchy pastry, really peppery, good gravy, nice chunks of meat and lots of vegetables.
If you’re on your way home from a Cornish holiday this summer, between Truro and St Austell, you have to stop here and have a pasty… BEST EVER!
I’m just dipping in quickly with another super quick light supper for the summer. I apologise for the radio silence recently but things are a bit up in the air at the moment, I’m packing up my wooden spoons to return to Oxford for the foreseeable future. After ten amazing years in Liverpool, I’ve been offered a great job back in Oxford and so I’ve accepted it and the packing has commenced! If I don’t update as often, it’s because I’m floundering beneath seven years of bad fashion, forgotten photos and mix tapes! Also I have loaned my laptop to a friend to begin his work as a Head Chef in charge of the development of a brand new restaurant so I’m often without computer access.
Anyway, enough excuses, please accept this salad in the interim and I promise to be back soon.
You don’t really need a recipe for this but just look at those colours. I’m a mozzarella fiend, especially buffalo mozzarella. This is possibly the best thing I can think to eat on a hot day. Slice a tomato, cover it in salt and pepper and leave it for quite a long time so the salt and pepper can do their thing, I’m not sure what their thing is but my, it tastes amazing. Slice some mozzarella over the top. Throw on some basil leaves. In a small jar/jug, whisk some pesto with some olive oil. Drizzle over the top. Eat immediately, with or without crusty bread.
Back soon. I promise.
I think there may be a common theme to this week’s posts, easy and involving bright colours. I have another super simple recipe for you here, so simple it’s barely a recipe but perfect for hot, summer days and airless, summer nights. I like to eat this for brunch, sometimes I mix it up with a bit of chilli sauce or similar but then you’re stepping on guacamole territory, although frankly I think there’s nothing better than the idea of guacamole on toast.
Avocados and I haven’t always been friends. For years, I couldn’t understand the appeal of the weird soapy green thing that everyone ate topped with prawn cocktail and then it clicked and now I would sell my family members for an avocado. When I was in Australia, I ate heaps of avocado, mostly on eggs Benedict but quite often like this and it was love at first bite. My mum has the most amazing green avocado dishes, I think they must be from the 60s, 70s, very Abigail’s party. In one of the photos below, I have heaped it with the mushed avocado because I love the dishes so much I thought they deserved to appear on this blog.
This is ludicrously simple so please forgive me the recipe but again it’s the sort of thing that may just appeal to your jaded senses at the end of a long day. I also appreciate I’ve now given you two something on toast recipes in a row but it’s hot and we are all fans of bread. Eat this with an achingly long gin and tonic and sit in the garden and celebrate that summer has arrived and it’ll probably be gone by next week.
“Green Toast” – Avocado on Toast
My word it is hot with a capital H! Having waited for what feels like months for our summer, we’re now getting it by the bucketload and I am wafting around enjoying it enormously. So far I’ve cheered along Wimbledon, had Pimms in the garden, eaten some raspberries and caught the sun on my nose!
I think this time of the year, we’re all looking out for lighter things to eat, things to make later in the evening when it’s cooler. These came about because I had a loaf of AMAZING sourdough bread and because our local market has the best cherry tomatoes. I always buy a paper bag of them on a Friday to eat with my lunch and this was a way of using up the leftovers.
Bruschetta couldn’t be simpler and I don’t want you to think that you need a recipe for this but consider it a sort of aide memoire or an idea of something for supper when you’re too hot to think! The colours of this are instantly cheering.
Cherry Tomato Bruschetta
Trying having to two double gins and then saying pithivier, it’s a real laugh. I actually don’t think this is a pithivier, it’s probably just a puff pastry tart. I’m not entirely sure what constitutes an actual pithivier, but this is my version. My version in that it may be loosely based on the actual thing. I remember quite clearly that a pithivier needed to have lines scored down the puff pastry with a sharp knife before going in the oven. I did this so I think it counts.
It was actually pretty delicious. David did point out that a whole plate of it was a bit filling but you don’t need to be gluttons like us. Also I think a tart little salad on the side would help enormously with that. David had also consumed an errant mint leaf from the Jersey Royals which displeased him greatly so I think that may have marred the occasion. I’ve talked about Taleggio before, it’s one of my favourite cheeses. You don’t always see it in supermarkets but I got mine in the fancier cheese section of Asda, next to the delicatessen bit. Of course, best of all is buying it from a great, small, independent cheese shop but not everyone is blessed with one of these. Mild-ish but full of flavour and a texture that begs to be melted. The perfect pairing for this is the sultry buttery mushrooms sauteed in garlic and thyme and zingy rocket. I, obviously, used pre-made puff as my life is too short and fraught with melodrama to be making puff pastry but you could make flaky pastry if you have lots of time or the domestic inclination.
I actually found the process of making this quite pleasant, even so far as calming, as I got to fiddle about with decorative strips of puff pastry and totter about in the herb bed picking thyme. I was having the sort of day where I’d have willingly walked into the mouth of a polar bear so that must attest to the ease of this recipe. It also makes you feel pretty darned domestic when it comes out of the oven looking all golden and special.
You could make this into any shape you fancied and you could fill it with pretty much anything but it was really delicious and the perfect supper for the sort of wet and grizzly weather we’ve had recently. I took a picture of it cut so you could see the melty greatness…
Pithivier of Taleggio, Mushrooms and Rocket
Enough for 2-4, depending on your appetite
I am a menace to all stationery cupboards, it’s not borne out of any malice or greed or an attempt to bring down ‘the man’ one highlighter at a time, I just love stationery. My father loves stationery; perhaps it’s genetic. When I was small, we would go to the art supplies shop in Newbury and read the names on the lids of the watercolour paints. I still love the names for paint colours. My mum’s shop was next to a stationer’s when I was a child and I would go round with some coins and choose what to buy, I could eke this process out for hours. I collect notebooks, beautiful, beautiful notebooks except I daren’t write in them lest I not save them for the right thing. I tend to buy boring exercise books for writing and keep my notebooks for best. Except I’m not sure I’ll ever find an occasion worthy enough.
One of my absolute highlights in the stationery world is pens. I will spend a vast amount of time seeking the perfect pen. Our stationery cupboard did have the perfect pen and I used these with absolute joy, they’ve never got that pen again and it makes me sad every time. Sharpies are the absolute king of pens though, they write beautifully, they write on anything. I dream of the day I source a gold one. So when I got home the other night and I found I’d put my work Sharpie in my bag, I knew exactly what I wanted to do… Writing on cups and mugs!
I know you’re thinking this is a food blog and I’m wittering about crafty things but I have seen some amazing examples of this with the coloured sharpies. Dinner services that would give Anthopologie a run for their money (sidenote: I would live in Anthropologie if they let me!). The gypsy-ish print that Cath Kidston does, you could create that with a Sharpie. Polka dots, yes! Aztec cowboy high jinks, Sharpies are your friends. This post isn’t sponsored by Sharpie by the way, I just really love pens. Serving dishes and salad bowls, ceramic spoons or clocks, glass jugs… the list is endless!
So anyway, writing on mugs/cups is very simple. You want a fresh cup of mug, I obviously used plain white but some people I imagine would come up with amazing ideas for decorated or coloured mugs. I wiped these down with watered down nail polish remover just to get rid of any grease or marks that might affect the set. I then did some writing. I have plans to draw some things but I wanted to practice a bit first and I’m a bit scared of drawing. I’ll update you when I do. I made the mugs below based on a few things I’d seen on Pinterest. (David is the coffee drinker, I’ll drink most pink types of teabag)
You just need to set what ever you like down on your cup. Some people use gold Sharpies, that effect is amazing. When the ink is dry, you can bake this in the oven at 140C for about 30 minutes. This should set the ink. I would add a word of caution that they probably won’t respond well to a dishwasher. Probably best for hand-washing and light-to-moderate usage!
Imagine the other things you could do, you could have a whole dinner service!
If you follow me on Instagram or Twitter, or you’re indeed a friend or family member, you’ll probably know that about a fortnight ago my best friend and I were standing in a field about to watch the Killers sing to quite a number of chilly, like-minded souls. You may also know the saga of our last attempt at a festival and so how amazing it was to actually get to the festival and even more amazing to stay the whole weekend! If you don’t, it has taken a lot of work!
I am not a natural camper, I hate tents, I’m not keen on insects or grass in large quantities, I think I may actually be allergic to portaloos, I don’t like having the sore back, bottom and hips that come with 4 days spent sleeping in what Caitlin Moran accurately described as a ‘giant carrier bag’ or a campsite. BUT I had an amazing time and I have come away with THE list of what I need to survive a festival:
So I thought it would make a bit of a change to tell you about some food I ate in a field. There was the obligatory pulled pork and jerk chicken, some amazing hot doughnuts consumed during Bon Jovi but some other treats that should you be going to a festival this summer, I think you should check out.
So good, I ate from there twice. Grilled chicken, marinated in something delicious, amazing homemade salads, a red cabbage and carrot coleslaw, homemade houmous, homemade tzatiki, sweet chilli sauce. Oh My! Ant had the lamb kofta kebab, twice! It was so delicious. Hard to eat but wrapped in a huge turkish flatbread and so completely delicious. I think it was about £6.50, so utterly reasonable.
The incredibly famous Bristol-based pie company, Pieminister are often at open air gatherings and there’s a Pieminister shop in Oxford, you can buy them in supermarkets and quite a few pubs in Liverpool serve their amazing pies. I had a Peahock pie, ham hock, peas and mustard. I had this with mash (which was so smooth and delicious), minty peas, gravy and crispy shallots. We ate our pies on the coldest night and they went down a treat!
I have always resisted the lure of the Hummingbird Bakery cupcake. I rather took against them when I made a string of disasters from their recipe book and recently, I’ve been a bit ‘over’ the cupcake thing but I saw the stand and then I saw the cupcakes and I knew I would have to try one. They were selling the vanilla, the chocolate, the red velvet and the carrot cakes and I tried both the chocolate and the carrot ones over the course of the weekend. O M G – they were light, fluffy, full of flavour, everything a cupcake always promised it would be before they became overdone and dull. I am now a convert.
Special mention should also go to a noodle/rice place that did the best Cambodian pork dish that Ant has eaten since he was in Cambodia and a pad thai that made me weep tears of joy. I can’t remember the name though but Ant may be able to fill in this blank. Also wanted to get to the Jamie Oliver vans, which I know will make some people groan, but it would have been nice to have ticked that box! I really, really wanted a hot roast pork roll with apple sauce but we ran out of time and I had my eyes turned by the ‘Crab on Chips’ van, they had lobster on chips!! Next year, that will be my first stop!
I have also included for you a picture of me looking like a total prat in a hat. Because I’m generous like that…
Simon Rimmer, of C4’s Sunday Brunch and the hit restarateur of Manchester, has long been a great supporter of Liverpool’s food scene, currently working with Steven Burgess of Camp and Furnace on this August Bank Holiday’s Summercamp Festival.
Yesterday brought the great news that he’s opening his own restaurant in the city as a part of the new Double Tree by Hilton hotel being developed on Dale Street. This will be Simon Rimmer at Layla Brasserie.
David Hughes, general manager of the hotel, said of the new venture “We are delighted to be working with Simon Rimmer and we welcome such a well-loved name on the food scene to our beautiful new hotel.”
Simon Rimmer, himself, added of his newest outpost “We are in the process of hand-picking the most talented and creative chefs in the hospitality industry who will join the team in Liverpool.”
Such exciting news..
I have been having holidays in Cornwall since I was a small child and there are many places I love and would visit time and time again but to stay, the only place for me is St Mawes. A really lovely village on the south coast, relatively quiet in May and a more beautiful and peaceful place you’d struggle to find. Each May, Mum and I spend a week in St Mawes catching up on our reading, drinking gin and eating as much of the ocean as we can. We counted this year that we’d consumed: crab, lobster, prawns, red mullet, mussels, hake, whitebait, haddock, cod, squid, and probably some more. Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall will be furious! Half of the fun of our holiday is looking forward to the lovely treats we’ll eat and the places we’ll revisit. Our annual trips to some of our favourite restaurants, shops, beaches and towns are long planned in advance.
One of the smartest restaurants in St Mawes is the The Watch House on the corner of the harbour. Twinkly lighted and looking out over the river, this is one of my favourite spots in St Mawes. We booked for the Saturday night of our trip and then spent the day attempting not to consume batches of saffron buns and ice creams to save room for our supper.
We arrived shortly after 6.30pm and were sat at a lovely table upstairs looking out over the water. I think the upstairs is my favourite part of the restaurant, brighter, lighter and with what feels like a higher ceiling. The decor inside is brilliant white, with the odd bit of sailing kit. It’s lovely; fresh and chic. The staff are also brimming with enthusiasm and surprisingly resilient when dealing with the sniggery humour we inadvertently brought with us! It’s a long story but involves much giggling about the word ‘crabs’ – we really are children.
The wine list is extensive and Mum’s glass of sauvignon and my rose were both lovely and fresh. There’s plenty of water in jugs on the table and a delicious basket of fresh bread which we fall upon having had to forego all manner of buns and snacks!
To start with Mum had the fritto misto with sweet potato and sage leaves and a homemade aioli. The aioli packed a wonderful punch and the tempura-esque sage leaves were a revelation. The only downside being that it was a little light on fish but it was lovely and beautifully presented in an enamelware dish. I had scallops, it’s pretty much a given that if there are scallops I will have them, these were delicately seared and served with a cauliflower puree which was subtle but delicious. The scallops were the perfect texture and tasted of the sea. Heavenly, especially with the fresh peas and watercress.
For mains, Mum dithered about between lamb and fish and eventually settled on the fish pie. This came with the two mussels popping out the top like the sardines in stargazey pie, I liked this touch. The fish pie was lovely, a creamy herby sauce but extremely filling. I had the Devonshire Ruby Red steak and my word, if there was an amazing piece of steak prize this would win. I actually had a steak when we visited last year and I remembered what an amazing piece of meat it was. You can really tell that The Watch House care about where they source their ingredients from, not only are they fresh and local but of extremely high quality. The chips were some of the best ever consumed by Draycott women, and we’ve tested plenty, and the garlic/herb butter was thick and punchy.
We decided not to have a pudding but to consume more ice cream on the walk back to our cottage. It was an absolutely delicious meal and in a lovely setting with great service. The bill came to about £70, but I actually can’t entirely remember.
Definitely looking forward to next year now!
The Girl With The Wooden Spoon 